Six Common Misconceptions About Being in a Band

You should probably just stick to the video game version of being in a band, really.

By: Drew Ailes
For some dumb reason, everyone wants to be in a rock band. Probably because it's a good way to avoid gazing into the inescapable black hole of painful loneliness. That and rock & roll kicks ass, and gets you chicks or dudes or money or something.

The problem with rock music (aside from the talentless assholes with money) is that people don't seem to understand what playing it is really like. Effectively convincing people what being in a band "should actually be" would take a number of expensive hallucinogens and months of intense brain deprogramming. Instead of that, we made a list for you to argue with. Here are six common misconceptions that make bands suck.

Don't rely on the same society that put Dave Matthews Band, Metallica and Eminem on Billboard's "most consecutive studio albums to debut at No. 1" to also pay your bar tabs and rent. In return for not expecting shit, you and your friends get to enjoy the $80 that mysteriously ended up in your jacket pocket after you fell asleep next to a pull-tab booth. Frankly, the only people in the music industry who rightfully deserve to be paid are the people who were screwed over back when it was only unrealistic to make money (rather than nearly impossible, as today). Thurston Moore from Sonic Youth probably can't go back to community college to get a temp job as a metal fabricator. However, the bassist in your unknown alt-country band probably can.

There are no groupies for you. Well, OK, there are potentially "groupies." But the men and women who would be considered "groupies" are the sexual equivalents of fast-food slobs. In the way a fast-food junkie celebrates the cat's birthday with a Big Mac value meal, groupies are just trying to find any excuse to have sex with someone. That flimsy excuse, if you're "lucky," can be the fact that you were simply standing on a stage at a time when other people weren't -- nothing more. While meaningless sex and greasy food are two things to be regularly enjoyed while trashed, rarely do you feel awesome about yourself the next day.